Rational Telecom

Everybody hates meetings. Meetings are the bane of all office workers, denigrated as a staggering waste of time. So, duly acknowledged. But some meetings are an important, and often neglected, aspect of good management: the weekly team meeting, and (especially) the weekly one-on-one with each direct report.

In my mind, the weekly team meeting is not an individual status meeting in which the boss begins by saying a few words followed by each participant speaking in turn about their specific area. In such meetings there are two types of people: those that have not yet spoken (they are ignoring the speaker and noting what they will say when it’s their turn), and the people that have already spoken (also ignoring the speaker, they are in a state akin to catatonia waiting for the meeting to end.) Instead, the team meeting should focus on working together toward a set of common goals (or even a single goal), with the objective toward sharing progress toward the goal, obstacles, challenges, suggestions, etc. That the team is physically participating in the same meeting should not be incidental.

Individual goals and accomplishments should be discussed in a regular one-on-one. In my experience, it’s very rare that a manager will schedule these meetings. Some feel that such a meeting is a waste of time, that the close day-to-day interaction of working together is sufficient. I disagree.

One-on-one meetings enable a focus on issues that are relevant to the individual, such as progress against action items, without unnecessarily using other people’s time. They create a natural forum for coaching and mentoring, and foster an environment in which negative feedback is much easier to provide (and much easier to hear). One-on-ones should hold to an agenda so the person knows exactly what to expect. I usually start positively with general comments about how the persons activities are contributing, and bring up any negative or controversial feedback that I might want to give (and allocate time to discuss it). I then discuss the person’s specific action items and deliverables (this isn’t an opportunity to micro-manage; the emphasis is on uncovering problems that I can help solve), then invite conversation about the person’s general professional goals. I finish the meeting by invite the person to bring up any items they wish to discuss and always end with a positive remark and a “thank you.”

Particularly with many direct reports, it’s true that regular one-on-ones take a lot of time. This is the number one reason they are so often neglected — who can stomach yet more meetings?! Combined with team meetings, however, I believe the reward is significant — a greater awareness of the day-to-day activities of everyone on your team, better responsiveness to their issues, improved team “chemistry,” and greater efficiency.